Adolph Reed on What It Will Take to Defeat Trumpism
Donald Trump’s popularity may be waning, but the political-economic conditions that gave rise to Trumpism remain, Adolph Reed argues. To defeat the Right, the Left needs to rebuild durable working-class organization and a universalistic politics.
Longtime organizer and political scientist Adolph Reed explains why we need a solidaristic, universalist politics capable of confronting both economic inequality and authoritarianism. (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
With the 2026 midterm elections approaching and Donald Trump’s approval ratings at record lows, it’s easy to hope that we might someday soon find the politics of Trumpism behind us. But it’s far from clear that the Democratic Party can effectively capitalize on anti-Trump sentiment, and Democrats certainly are not offering a clear, compelling program that could address widespread political discontent.
In a wide-ranging interview with the European Center for Populism Studies’s Selcuk Gultasli, political scientist and longtime socialist organizer Adolph Reed Jr offers a political-economic interpretation of Trumpism, arguing that the structural contradictions underlying authoritarian nationalism remain fundamentally unresolved. Reed discusses the tensions between capitalist accumulation and democratic legitimacy, challenges race-reductionist explanations of inequality, and critiques neoliberalism’s displacement of class-based politics. Warning that “the threat of another version of Trumpism will continue to be there,” he emphasizes the limitations of left electoral mobilizations without durable working-class organization and advocates for rebuilding a solidaristic, universalist politics capable of confronting both economic inequality and authoritarianism. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Selcuk Gultasli
Let me begin with how we should conceptualize Trumpism itself. You have recently referred explicitly to the rise of “Trumpist fascism” and elsewhere described Trumpism as the “point of the lance” of a broader fascist international. At the same time, much of the political science literature analyzes Trump through the language of populism, authoritarian populism, or the populist radical right.
Adolph Reed
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.